July 6, 2009

damn whippersnappers

I have become a crotchety old man. I expect I will be screaming at the damn kids to stay off my lawn any day now.

For some time I have been irritated that my cable station COMCAST blacks out several Cubs games in my area. You see, often when the Cubs are on a national broadcast they are carried by Comcast Sports in the Chicago and large metropolitan areas. When that happens they block the national feed so the viewer has to watch Comcast Sports and their advertisers. I have no issue with that, except COMCAST does not offer the Comcast Sports Channel in my area -- for any price. It is not an option. That means I do not get to see the Cubs.

I called up Comcast to complain yesterday when they blocked the TBS signal. After the various phone system push this and that menus I finally got a live person. She proceeded to tell me that it was TBS blocking the signal. I told her I could not believe a broadcast station would deny viewers the chance to watch their programming. She allowed that it did not make sense but I should complain to TBS. I asked her why TBS and ESPN and Fox only blocked out CUBS games when Comcast was broadcasting the game in Chicago? She admitted that was weird, but they were not to blame. She suggested I call TBS again.

Just then, the blacked-out station began playing commercials. It was the "local" spots TBS had sold. One of which, by coincidence, was a Comcast commercial. I told the customer service rep it was interesting that TBS would block all programing except a Comcast commercial which happened to be airing. I asked her again why TBS would do that and maybe it was really Comcast that was blocking my signal?

She said she would pass on my complaint to marketing and hung up on me.

I did not really expect a response, and did call just to bitch. It is not like they were going to say, "Oh, Hoosierboy is upset, turn on the signal." I was irritated the game was not on, I am pissed they lied about it.

BTW save the comments about satellites etc. It ain't gonna happen. The dish does not do well with the rain and wind in this area. All of my neighbors have switched back to their shitty cable service.